EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

Help Wanted – EmComm Editor

CQ is looking for a new Emergency Communications editor! If you belong to an EmComm group or have experience in all manners of emergency communications and can string together a few sentences explaining it to your fellow hams on a monthly basis, feel free to contact Editor Rich Moseson at <w2vu@cq-amateur-radio.com>.

Continuing our “back to basics” theme from last month, when we covered the basics of emergency and public service net operation, our focus this time is on the “alphabet soup” of abbreviations and acronyms that an amateur radio emergency communicator is likely to encounter. There are quite a few, since much ham radio EmComm work is done in cooperation with government agencies, and government agencies love their abbreviations and acronyms! For ease of reference, we’ll run through them in alphabetical order. (Advance apologies for any that we miss. Local and regional groups generally are not included.)

– Auxiliary Communications Service, also often known as AuxComm —